Millennium Pharmaceuticals is led by Deborah Dunsire, MD, President and CEO.
This information is from the Millennium Pharmaceuticals website:
Founded in 1993, Millennium is one of the world’s top biopharmaceutical companies. They have a leading oncology drug, proven commercial capabilities, and many product candidates in varying stages of development.
Millennium Pharmaceuticals currently markets a leading oncology product, VELCADE® (bortezomib) for Injection. Millennium expects to develop drugs in two key therapeutic areas:
* Cancer
* Inflammation
The company also has a significant number of investigational drugs at various stages of clinical and preclinical development.
What is the Millennium approach to drug discovery and development?
Their goal is to use their deep understanding of mechanisms and pathways of disease together with the unique characteristics of the individual to accelerate the prevention, detection and cure of disease. The Company’s goal is to redefine diseases on the molecular level so that therapeutics can be targeted to specific patient populations, thereby offering the right treatment, to the right patient. Their approach relies on their deep understanding of the human genome and disease biology to focus on developing therapeutic products that target the underlying elements of disease and the molecular profiles of specific patient populations.
How is this approach different?
Many other therapies were developed to detect and treat the symptoms and/or apparent causes of disease broadly across all patients. These conventional drug development approaches do not take into account that, due to genetic variations, a disease may manifest itself slightly differently in different types of patients.
The Millennium advantage in the development of new drugs lies in:
* knowledge of genomics and disease biology
* an integrated and early approach to applying scientific understanding and technologies
* a focus on biomarker-assisted drug discovery, and
* the support of an organization steeped in innovation
Millennium is using genetic tools to define disease endpoints at the molecular rather than phenotypic (combined genetic and environmental) level to determine which groups and subgroups of patients will respond to a treatment from discovery through to development, and which patients will fail to respond. In addition, a better understanding of the human genome offers greater understanding of the mechanisms of drug toxicity, leading to the development of potentially superior drugs that minimize serious adverse reactions.
How does a personalized medicine approach benefit the drug-development process?
While the ultimate goal is to yield molecular-based therapeutics. Millennium seeks to increase the efficiency and reduce the risks of the drug development process. Millennium does this by identifying novel drug targets that are linked to the fundamental mechanisms of disease and screening out compounds with toxicogenomic markers. Thereby, allowing for more careful selection for inclusion in clinical trials those patients genetically most likely to benefit from the treatment being tested, as well as those genetically least likely to experience serious side effects.
What does Millennium seek to accomplish?
Millennium is uniquely positioned to play a leadership role in the discovery, development and commercialization of drugs. They are focused on using the molecular understanding of disease to more effectively design therapeutic treatments and diagnostic products, manage clinical trials with greater productivity, and deliver novel products that significantly improve patient outcomes.
For more information about Millennium Pharmaceuticals, please visit their website.
